About the Course

With the incredible degree of control offered by digital imaging, much of the emphasis is on color imagery. But digital techniques are just as applicable to photographers who work mainly in black and white. Many procedures and effects that are standards of the traditional wet darkroom can be duplicated with great precision using image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop. This course is for intermediate Photoshop users who are interested in making high quality black and white images in the digital darkroom.

This five day workshop will be taught by Seán Duggan, co-author of "Photoshop 7 Artistry, Mastering the Digital Image" by Barry Haynes (New Riders). One of the five days will be spent doing field photography with the aim of visualizing and creating images in black and white. Participants will use their own camera gear, supplemented by Canon EOS 10D digital SLR cameras and lenses available at the Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging. The digital darkroom lab will be available after hours to 9pm on several nights for participants to do additional work if desired.

The first day will be an orientation, including a breakfast gathering with an overview of the week ahead. The class will then proceed to the digital darkroom lab, with an introduction to the equipment to be used and a review of some basic black and white tonal correction concepts and procedures using Photoshop.  On the second day we will venture out for a day of photography and looking at the world through a black and white "filter". The remaining three days will concentrate on exploration and discovery in the digital darkroom as you learn how to use Photoshop to get the most out of your black and white images. Students are also encouraged to bring their own images to work with during the week. The class will be a combination of demonstration, lecture, and hands-on work with a variety of images. The mornings will be spent with lectures and tutorials to help you learn new techniques and in the afternoons you can apply those new skills to your own images or images that we provide.

Some of the topics for the week will include:

• The Zone System and how it translates to a digital image.
• How to read the qualities of light and interpret how the color scene you see with your eyes will render as a black and white image.
• Scanning black and white negatives to capture the maximum contrast and tonal range.
• Tonal adjustments and correction using Levels, Curves, and Layer/Blend Mode combinations.
• How to create precise masks for localized tonal adjustments.
• Techniques for creating a custom conversion from a color original to get exactly the black and white image you want.
• Flexible dodging and burning and digital techniques for simulating traditional darkroom effects such as reticulation and solarization.
• Digital Toning, Split-Toning, Duotones, and Color Tinting.
• Infra-Red film effects; adding film grain, shallow depth of field, and techniques for creating a distressed, "antique" look.
• Creating custom correction curves for getting neutral black and white prints from color inkjet printers.
• Overview of current output options for digital black and white, including the new Epson 7-ink printers, using quadtone inks from Cone Editions, and Lightjet photographic prints.
• A discussion of some of the hybrid old school/new school approaches that include creating new film negatives for traditional darkroom enlargements and using high resolution bitmaps to create large negatives for contact printing in a black and white darkroom.
• Cover the complete process necessary to make fine prints on Epson printers, including the proper use of paper/printer profiles and navigating the Photoshop Print with Preview dialog and the Epson printer driver.

Who Should Attend?

This is an intermediate to advanced course that offers participants the tools to apply wet darkroom techniques for black & white images to the digital darkroom. Course participants should be familiar with tonal editing tools in Photoshop, though no specific experience working digitally with black & white images is required.

Schedule-At-A-Glance

Here is an outline of the topics to be covered so you'll have an idea of what to expect: